The Fallen Stars
by Electric Smile
Summary: SEQUEL to "The Game". Four people once vowed to protect their world at all costs. Now that they have, they've become pariahs. The world they fought to protect now fears them and clamors for their imprisonment, but how long will it be before they're needed again? ONE: It all starts with an impossible radio signal from a dying satellite...
1. Voyager

Hi. You have found the sequel to my silly, ridiculous fantasy fanfic "The Game". If you tolerated that or even enjoyed it, welcome to round two. If you haven't read that, well, I'm not in a position to tell you what to do with your life, but I just don't want you to be confused by reading this either. If you would like a short summary of the last fic, let me know and I will post one. If you want to read it that is neat too. So here we are, onto the silly, ridiculous sci-fi-riffic sequel.

* * *

"Just between you and me, strictly off the record..."

He would've rolled his eyes if he wasn't looking into the face of a superior. He knew what was coming. The same question that he'd been answering for a year and a half now.

"...do you know where he is?"

"I haven't seen Lieutenant Nash since the incident at Shadaloo, sir," Guile responded, same as always. It was not a complete lie. He hadn't _seen _Charlie, but that wasn't to say they never spoke. Guile wasn't stupid enough to think he wasn't being monitored by the government as a result of his involvement with Charlie and the other three 'persons of interest'. He was careful. All messages to Charlie were encrypted. Any telephone communication, as rarely as that happened, was done with no-contract phones that ended up destroyed and thrown away by each party after one use. He paid cash for them and always in a different establishment in order to avoid alerting anyone to a pattern. But as far as the rest of the world knew, he was completely oblivious to Charlie's whereabouts.

His superior pursed his lips and nodded. "To think one of our own soldiers would turn his back when his country calls." Guile didn't respond, merely nodding as the man left the room. He knew what was waiting for Charlie should he throw himself at the mercy of his country. How could he best be used as a weapon? How could his own innate powers be manipulated or copied for use by other soldiers? Or, the very worst, how could he be destroyed in the name of national security? It sickened him to think that his friends were being treated as criminals when all they did was save the world. He could tell people what had really happened, but the conversations almost always went the same way-to the unreasonable 'what-ifs'.

He figured part of those what-ifs were Vega's fault. Few things could strike fear into the hearts of the average citizen as quickly as a psychotic former-terrorist that had suddenly developed the power to create fire at will. A trail of horrifying murders-corpses burnt from the inside-followed the bastard like breadcrumbs across Europe from Spain into Greece. From there, they'd lost him. And he guessed he could see why people wanted something done about him.

But the rest of them didn't deserve the treatment they were getting. Guile tried to keep his mouth shut about how he felt in that regard when he was questioned, unless it was a close friend or someone he thought he could convince. He'd been contacted by numerous media outlets and government agencies for interviews, and he declined whenever he could. Others had gotten the same treatment. The few times he'd spoken to Cammy, she'd complained of similar problems. Ken took a humerous approach to the questions, seeming to bask in the attention but never really revealing anything to anyone. He hadn't known much to begin with. Rose and Bison had, of course, dropped off all radars. He wondered sometimes if Bison felt insulted that one of his former underlings had sniped the world's most wanted man spot from him. Sakura was lucky enough to be a minor so that her name had never been released to the public, but he assumed her own government probably had the occasional question or two for her. And then there was...

"Major Guile, you have a visitor."

He nodded. "Show them in." A few minutes later, the door opened again.

"Whatever happened to chivalry? You can't open a door for somebody?"

He rolled his eyes. "Whatever happened to equality? Can't you open your own door?" He gave her the courtesy of getting up to his feet and extending a hand. "Agent Maya."

"Major Guile." She shook his hand before double checking that the door was closed. "Can we talk?" Her eyes seemed to be expressing another question besides the one she'd spoken. He took its meaning immediately.

"I was actually on my way out to lunch. Maybe, if you wouldn't mind, we could speak there?" he responded.

"Only if the food's good and it's on your dime." He snorted as they headed out of the building. Viper seemed to have drawn an invisible line in the sidewalk and was waiting for them to pass it before speaking again. He put his hands in his pockets as he waited, lazily surveying the area when she finally started talking.

"How's Nash doing?" she questioned quietly so as to not be overheard.

"He's holed up in some place up in Canada. Don't know exact details. He's got access to football somehow because it's half of what we talk about." Guile thought about that for a minute. The whole world was out to get him and Charlie's more interested in bickering with his best friend about football. There was a down-to-earth guy if he ever knew one.

"They stream games sometimes, you know," she replied. "He probably has a computer. Wouldn't make sense to be seen in a place that had them for public use."

Guile shrugged. They didn't talk much about that. More so about average and mundane things. "Things seem to stay pretty quiet for him. And I guess that's good."

"Quiet. Maybe for him." Viper huffed as she crossed her arms. "What about the rest of them? Everyone's favourite psychopath burned his way through Europe. We lost him once he got out of Greece."

"Yeah," Guile said. "But that's one that can't hide forever. He's not stable enough to keep to himself. Charlie can keep a cool head. Ryu is better at disappearing than anyone on the planet. And Chun-Li's too smart to get caught."

Viper shrugged. "Actually, Miss Xiang almost had herself detained. If you talk to her you'd better tell her to watch herself."

Guile shook his head, surprised to hear this. "I speak with her much less frequently. I could probably count contact on one hand. I didn't hear she'd almost gotten caught, though."

Viper nodded. "They picked that up the other day. She must be stubborn or something because she was still in China. They had the cuffs on her and everything when she did..uh, you know, her water thing and slipped out of them and ran off." She sighed and shrugged. "But I don't get to hear too many details anymore. I'm amazed I still even have a job with the CIA given that I just disappeared from their custody. I guess I'm lucky the android told me to return him to headquarters so the higher-ups could see just what went on when they picked through its memory."

"So the CIA knows everything that went on and still decided to paint my friends as criminals?" Guile could barely conceal his disgust.

"Well...what are you going to do?" The woman threw up her hands. "What they saw scared them. Hell, it scared me. You were there when that guy went off all supernova. How do you think the government felt about seeing that part? Even if, for the most part, they don't want to hurt anybody, and they all saved us, they still have these capabilities which make the average person feel threatened. If they wanted, they could take us all to hell."

"They don't deserve this," Guile snapped, annoyed with her lack of sympathy for them. "I mean, maybe Vega, they shouldn't let him see the light of day, but the rest-they don't deserve this."

"Maybe. But at least know this-for all the people out there looking for these guys, they at least know that they can't kill them. They learned it from the android's memory, and even if it seems so over the top, they had visual evidence of everything that happened. So they understand how important the four of them might be to the planet's safety." She was quiet for a minute, then muttered, "But I don't know what they would do if they caught them."

"I don't want to think about it, either," Guile responded. "What happened to the android?"

"You mean that god-thing in it? It told me to bring it back to headquarters. The minute I called for transportation, it deactivated itself and hasn't turned on since. Now it's all in pieces, hidden away in a room somewhere, I'm sure."

"And...Juri?" he asked.

Viper whistled lowly at that one. "Catatonic for about a month. Then out of nowhere she started talking again. Didn't remember a damn thing. I didn't have the evidence to link her to what happened at S.I.N., so she walked away from any wrong doing once she was cleared. They knew what a shitstorm it would cause to detain a teenager for what the public would perceive as no reason. Whatever was in her is long gone, and I wouldn't be surprised if she's off hunting down Bison somewhere."

Guile nodded. Juri was a diminished threat now. She was strong, there was no doubt about that, but she'd been almost god-like while hosting the entity that called itself Destruction. "So those are some of the CIA's top problems right now? Our four, Juri, and Bison?"

She waved a finger at him. "Close. There's a couple more."

"When it rains, it pours."

"No shit. The first is easier to swallow. A dozen or so people all went missing about a year ago. People disappear all the time, but these were a little weirder. Every single one of them is like, top of their field, best of the best in academia. I'm talking professors and scientists and linguists and mathematicians and computer programmers and biologists and chemists and astronomers," she said, ticking them off on her fingers. "They all disappeared on the same day, also weird. No signs of forced entries into homes or locked offices. So we've been sitting on that one for a while and haven't budged on it."

"Strange, I'll give you that."

"Yeah, but here is problem number two. You know the big stink they've made about that Voyager satellite leaving the solar system?" She waited for him to nod back. "Well, it hasn't left. It's dead. Prematurely. It had like, another fifteen years in it or something like that, but it just cut off, like someone had flipped a switch. The last thing it signaled back was um..." She waved her hand and squinted as she tried to remember. "It had some instrument that would measure radiation levels, and it was going ballistic."

"I'm no astronomer, but wouldn't a solar flare or something like that fry it?"

She shook her head. "It's got some thing that's meant to detect plasma from the sun, something like that. And the amount of radiation seemed to skyrocket very abruptly. There's also one last part that's got everybody a little nervous. This thing had a radio on it. Like it could pick up radio waves and send them to Earth. And it sent something back just before it died."

"Right. Something to do with, well, in my understanding, basically it would receive the radio waves from Jupiter and Saturn and send them back to us."

"Yeah, but here's the issue. The radio program was terminated in 2008. So who switched it back on?"

Guile stopped walking and stared at her. "Don't mess with me."

"Please. I wouldn't invest this much time in a joke, Major."

"Then what are you saying?"

"Well, I guess there could be two possibilities. The one I personally want to believe is that this weird radiation spike somehow triggered the radio before the whole thing died. The other is that..." She almost didn't want to say it. It sounded so stupid, so ridiculous, so over the top.

But what had there lives been recently but just that?


	2. Something Otherworldly

She decided her parents had become _way _too overprotective. She was starting to miss the freedom she'd had before the near-apocalyptic events from the year before. She'd go from school to wherever, simply dropping one of her parents a text that she'd be home in time for dinner. And they were usually okay with that if she had no prior obligations. But now, they were pretty much obsessed with her whereabouts.

Sakura supposed she could understand why. Especially once they released some of the video footage sourced from the android's hard drive. The day they'd shown those clips-of course it was always the most violent stuff, never the calmer stuff-her parents had flipped. Before they hadn't known she'd been in the thick of all that. They knew she was with Ryu, and they trusted him enough to consider that a safe place to be when the world seemed to be going to hell. They hadn't known his involvement in all of it until news agencies started giving out as many details as they could. She would always watch them, for better or worse. She'd never really done that before, paid attention to the news, but now it was something she'd lived through going on the television and she couldn't help it.

Sometimes it made her mad, what they were saying. That her friends were dangerous, and if they were spotted, to call the authorities immediately and offer all the information you could. Like they were horrible criminals or something. Well, one of them was, but still. Other times, it would make her happy when the occasional interview led to the person on television expressing the opinion that her friends shouldn't have been treated with such hostility. That they'd given everything they had to win a fight the world didn't even know was going on. And now instead of the world celebrating their accomplishment in thanks, they were persecuting them out of, for the most part, unfounded fears. It made her think back to the far past that the android had shown them, that even in their past lives, when the world turned against them they still had faithful friends. She tried to focus on that more than the anger. But she certainly didn't hold back when anyone expressed their fear or hate towards her friends. Especially if it involved Ryu.

She missed him. She was used to him disappearing for a few weeks at a time while he tried to better himself, or went off to a tournament she couldn't attend, or for a visit with Ken in America. But it had been so long since she'd seen him and it got to her sometimes. She checked her e-mail with an almost obsessive frequency, even though she knew Ryu wasn't exactly technologically competent. But he sent messages still, and each one always felt like the best thing that'd ever happened to her. He was somewhere in Asia, that was all she knew. He wouldn't tell her where for her own safety. And she didn't hold that against him. Maybe one day she'd get to see him again. She had to hope, at least.

"Hiiiii!" she cried out as she let herself into the apartment, abandoning her bike by the door as usual. Her mom greeted her back from the kitchen as Sakura passed on the way to her room. She slung her backpack onto the bed, started to walk away, and then immediately remembered she needed to have her gym clothes washed. She pulled them out of her backpack, and tossed them with the rest of the dirty clothes in the corner. Ryu had seen her disorganised room one time, and had made the comment, "I thought girls were supposed to be neater than this?" Nothing had changed.

She turned back to the dresser, not wanting to forget to put a fresh set of clothes in her bag for school the next day. She could forget trivial things like that pretty easily. It was her last pair, she realised as she double-checked the drawer. It made her notice something. A little corner of something black sticking out from beneath the clothes that were still in there. She fished it out, and the realisation had hit her. This was Vega's cell phone. She still had it after all this time. She hadn't meant to steal it or anything, it was just that after they'd disappeared, she never had a chance to return it to him.

A little curious, as usual, she took it over to her own phone charger and hoped they were compatible. It was, and she let it charge a little as she put her clothes in her bag. She wasn't sure what she was looking for, exactly, or why she'd brought this thing out. But she hadn't seen it in awhile. And maybe she could find a way to get it back to him. Picking it up once it finally turned on, she was surprised to find the phone had several messages. She tapped the notification. Maybe it was him telling her to keep it. It was a nicer phone than her own, even if the screen was a little cracked on the bottom and a year old now.

But it wasn't. The sender of the first message, she was surprised to see, was Cammy. It read, "A strange man was asking me for your location. IDK how he knows I've ever so much as spoken to you, but he does, and I did NOT like the looks of him." Sakura glanced back at previous messages between them. The last was from nearly two years ago. "Saw this and I thought you would be interested," read his message to her. A photo of an adorable little cat peering at the camera from over the edge of a brick wall was attached. Her response was simply, "YES :)))"

Sakura caught herself feeling guilty for looking through their conversation, even if it was trivial. She went back to check the other message, just to be sure. The sender for this one was labeled some Spanish word, but when she opened it, she knew it had to be Bison. "You are being pursued. You may be safer in prison than with what is after you. Reply ASAP." Again, she glanced up at the previous messages. They were more recent. "You can't stay hidden forever," one read. "Your assistance is required and you will be compensated greatly," read another. So Bison was trying to find him, too? That was a scary thought. Sakura was torn on whether or not to tell him that Vega wasn't getting these messages. On the one hand, she didn't want to put Vega back into contact with Bison. But on the other, there were these ominous messages, from Bison and Cammy, and she wondered if Vega, or the others for that matter, were in trouble.

She locked the phone's screen again, and dug out her own phone from her backpack. She quickly composed a message. "I think someone might be looking for you, or the others, I can't be sure. Isn't there any way you can come back home? I hope you're doing okay!" She sent it to the e-mail account Ken had set up for Ryu some time ago. The messages to Vega were a little worrying, but she couldn't know that the others were being asked for by the same people. All she could do was wait, for now.

* * *

This guy must've thought he was stupid, or blind, or both. And that aggravated him. So when he couldn't stand it anymore, he turned around, threw his arms out to his side, and said, "What?"

His wanna-be secretive follower stopped short. He was weird. Ken wasn't big with his intuitive side, but there was just something _off _about the guy's face. His eyes. "Hello."

"Okay, yeah, hi, what are you following me all around San Francisco for?" he snapped, a little irritated that the dude was going to play dumb.

"I have been trying to decide, what would be the best moment to speak to you?"

Ken laughed. "Well, I guess I decided for you. So what is it you want?"

"You were good friends with one Ryu Hoshi." The words came from the man like they'd been rehearsed a million times.

Ken sighed. "Look, if you want an interview about that, you go through the same avenues as everyone else. No special treatment just because you are dedicated and weird enough to follow me all over town."

"I am affiliated with no news or government agencies."

"Yeah, yeah, you're just a curious average guy who wants to have a chat. Heard that one before."

The man took a step forward, as if that would intimidate him. The weirdo was way too thin and lanky for that. "You do not understand, Ken Masters. I have no interest in the media or government of your country. I must find Ryu Hoshi. And you are his friend."

Ken stared for a minute, getting more creeped out the longer the guy spoke. That weird, halting, monotonous speech. The deadened eyes. The strangely perfect posture. And of course he was touching on a subject Ken had no intention of talking to anyone but his closest friends about. Of course he had an idea of where Ryu was. Of course he still spoke to him, and Charlie, and Chun-Li. Tor was a beautiful thing. But he wasn't about to tell that to anyone who asked. "Yeah, I'm one of Ryu's friends. But that doesn't mean I know anything about where he is."

"We must have this information."

He drew his brows together at that. "'We' who?"

"I will not share my secrets with one who will not share his." The man nodded a creepy, stiff nod, and turned away, leaving Ken to wonder what this was all about. He'd spoken to journalists before. They were personable in an effort to make him feel comfortable about opening up to them. He'd spoken to FBI agents, CIA operatives, folks from the NSA, even the military. They offered ultimatums or bribes, but Ken always insisted he hadn't seen Ryu since the incident, as they always referred to it. But this guy was nothing like that. Cold, aloof, plain weird. No threats. And somehow that made him more nervous than ever. For some reason, all he could think about was Shadaloo. Had Bison finally scraped the organisation back together again? Was he sending people all over the globe in search of these four powerful people? What horrible plans did he have for them? And had he already found any of them? Ken tried not to agonise over it too much until he could bounce these ideas off of someone else. But it didn't stop him from heading straight back home for Eliza.

* * *

She pressed herself against the wall, listening for the noises of feet scuffling across linoleum floors. She heard them fade down the corridor. When there was nothing but the ambient noises of a hospital, she finally peeked around the corner. There was no one. And who knew how long that would last. She had to just get through that last set of double doors, and she'd be there. Two doors past, on the left, and she'd be there. She checked her surroundings again, and crept silently, reaching the doors without incident.

She peered through the small window, waiting for a nurse to disappear around a corner. Pressing slowly against the door, it opened, each tiny noise seeming to her like an alarm of her presence. But no one came running, and she was sure she just amplified the noise in her own mind as a result of the risk involved. But the risk didn't matter. She had to see him. She'd already nearly been caught once as she fought her way back into China. How close she'd been on Vega's trail, closing in on him in Turkey when she received the news that brought her back home. The bastard would have to wait. Gen was dying.

The door closed with a click, impossible to avoid. She still had time. She stepped quickly but quietly to the door. The light was off inside. And why wouldn't it be? It was quickly approaching two in the morning. She felt a slight guilt at coming so late, of waking him, but it was her only chance. She'd never make it into this place during visiting hours. Pushing the door open, she could barely stand the sight. Even in the dark, she could tell how gaunt he'd become. Beyond lean, thin. She quietly closed the door behind her, but as vigilante as ever, even in such a state, he didn't fail to notice her.

"Why...are you here? It is too dangerous," he rasped quietly, and it pained her to hear him like this.

"No danger is great enough to keep me from the people I care about when they're in need," she responded in a whisper as she approached his bedside. She took his hand, squeezed it gently. It was cold.

"It is more important that you are safe."

"I am. Don't worry. I'm very careful," she responded.

"I may be old but I am not a fool. I see you on the news. You were nearly taken into their custody in your rush to get here," he said. His voice didn't convey any sort of disappointment, but she still felt guilty. Maybe she had slipped up, but all she could think about was getting to him on time. She'd received an e-mail from a friend telling her how his condition had suddenly deteriorated. That this could very well be her last chance to see him. And she couldn't give that up.

She bowed her head in apology. "I may have been a little careless once, but it won't happen again, I swear it."

He sighed. "More hunts you than you know."

She assumed he was exaggerating the amount of focus directed towards finding her by the government. "I try to stay aware."

But he shook his head. "A man visited me, just yesterday, asking after you. A man who did not quite seem to be entirely a man."

Chun-Li was puzzled by that statement, but couldn't help but wonder. "Do you mean...Bison?"

Gen coughed suddenly, and she felt guilty. Here he was, possibly on his death bed, and they were speaking about nothing but herself. "No," he managed finally. "I do not know with whom this man was affiliated, only that he inquired of your whereabouts. I would never reveal them. What have I to lose?"

"Don't talk like that," she said. Maybe it was unrealistic and naive, but what good did it do anyone to resign themselves to death? Even if the chance was slight, it was still there, and that's what mattered. "No one knows what the future holds."

"Death is the only certainty," he responded. She sighed. "I did not want it to happen like this. Wasting away in a hospital bed. I was supposed to find someone strong enough." He turned his tired eyes to her. "Now I've lost even the strength to spar."

"You should be focusing on recovering."

"An unrealistic goal. A waste of my remaining strength."

"You don't _know _that," she urged. But he seemed to disagree.

"You must remember. When you fought your great enemy. Falling to your knees, you must have known." She frowned because he was right. There was something that had clicked inside her mind. The knowledge that death was coming. It was the last thing she wanted to think about. "Now, I have that knowledge."

"Master Gen, please..." she urged, trying to get him to think more positively.

"We must all die sometime." He smiled suddenly, almost playfully, something she didn't often see him do. He put a hand to her cheek. "Almost all of us." And that struck her as unfair. She felt a horrible guilt. How was she allowed a second chance? She didn't want to be this important. She wanted to help people, of course. She wanted to save the world, and she had. But it pained her to know she was given a gift that she couldn't ever give to the people she loved. He seemed to sense her inner turmoil, and said, "I am an old man. I have lived longer than many. It is not my right to go on forever."

"I want to stay with you."

"It can not be done. When morning comes, you must be gone from here."

She bit her lip, thinking of where she could hide, how she could move through the hospital undetected with regularity. "Can't you come home? Won't they allow that? I can stay with you there, take care of you."

He shook his head. "It's too near for that."

Finally, she said, "Well, I'm sorry, but you can't force me to go. I'm staying with you here, one way or the other, whatever risks that entails. I'd dare someone to stand between me and that."

"Stubborn. Just like your father."

"If you already know, then don't try to argue," she said. With that, she pulled the chair from the side of the room closer to Gen's bed. She'd wait here with him. However long that would be, she'd wait.

* * *

The ever present buzzing of aerial drones had finally receded into the back of his mind. It no longer kept him awake at night. No longer instilled much panic. It just blended in with the rest of the noise. And there was always noise. Explosions or shouting. Engines or gun fire. Crying. Panic. Radio chatter. Helicopters. Bombs. This was home for now.

He wasn't sure why he'd come here. He supposed it would be the best way to blend in. There were nicer cities to be in in the Middle East than this one. Ones that didn't carry a threat of death. He couldn't go to them. He'd be noticed, sooner or later. But here, things were different. People were more concerned with their own personal security than the face of a stranger. They were more concerned about the violence, the soldiers, the rebels, the western militaries. Drones and tanks and bombs. For some reason he felt his best chances lie here, where everyone would be too preoccupied for him.

He spoke to as few people as possible. He stole his food more often than not. It wasn't hard. And he didn't feel any guilt. He'd _saved _these people, after all. The least they could do is give up a few pieces of food every once in a while. There was some strange amusement to be found in thinking of these people as saved, he decided. Did they know that? Because they were still fighting. The sound of gunfire drew his attention skyward. He looked up as a helicopter approached. People were running and screaming. A child was shaking a body in sprawled out on the ground, wailing and confused. Nothing ever changed.

He thought about that helicopter. Focused on its fuel tank, what it looked like, where it was located. Concentrated. He'd studied the aircraft in his spare time, and many others, so that the picture in his head would be so perfect when he finally-

There was an explosion. Flames and smoke shot out of the machine, and it began to spin out of control. It was like watching a drunk stumble down the street. He followed it with his eyes as it fell, the rotors slowing marginally as it lost power and then finally, it crashed to the ground. A few people screamed. Sand shot into the air upon impact. One man managed to crawl from the wreckage. The noises were terrible. And Vega watched patiently. The man was on fire. Just burning alive as he tried to roll in the sand, to put it out, to stop the horrible pain once and for all. So Vega thought for a second, and blinked, and the fire was gone. The man was still screaming. But maybe he would live. Maybe he would get to know what it felt like to survive. How hard it would be to forget the faces of the ones who'd died instead, and the ones he'd just gunned down. Vega had no agenda here. He hadn't picked a side, gone native, spat on the military or in the faces of any rebels. He was just curious of the way all of these patterns of loss and death seemed to echo all over the planet, as if guided by some silent force, merciless and detached.

He took a step towards the smoldering wreckage. Someone else had run over to assist the panting, screaming man. Others watched warily, while most had run off or tended to others. They didn't want to be implicated in this. Didn't want to be there when someone showed up demanding answers, even retribution. Vega could hear the would-be samaritan trying to calm the burned man. What help could he offer? How far was any medical assistance? He approached slowly, in no rush. Even after all this time, the smell of burning flesh was still something that tended to sicken him.

The man on the ground was not a native to the area. Some foreign soldier. He groaned and writhed, his skin blackened and pink. Vega wasn't terribly interested in his suffering. He glanced back to where he'd seen that child shaking that dead or dying body. Maybe, he decided, this one didn't need to know what it would be like to survive after all. The other man was Middle Eastern, and upon noticing the shadow cast by Vega as he approached, he said, "Quickly! Can you call for help?" in English.

"I can help." He withdrew the service pistol from the burnt man's side, and fired a shot clean through his skull. The other man shouted and jumped back, staring in horror.

"We could have saved-" Something seemed to register in the man's eyes as he looked up at Vega again. His mouth fell open, and he sputtered for a second. "You're-you're..."

"I made a mistake," Vega answered before firing another shot. The man fell, and he threw the pistol back to the dirt. Some days, no one got to know what it was like to survive.

* * *

In a quaint home on the outskirts of Genoa, a woman contemplated a deck of cards. She was hesitant to deal them lately. Every time she had since the ending of the fight against Destruction, they always showed the same thing. Her eyes would glaze over as she tried to read them, as if they just could no longer hold her interest. They said nothing to her, seemed random and silent. She began to despair that her clairvoyance was failing her, but tried to remain optimistic. A chaotic world was difficult to read, and the world was nothing short of that lately.

Picking up the deck, she began to lay them down one by one. The tower. This was nothing new. The world was scrambling to right itself again and to feel secure again while dealing with the new and frightening knowledge of these four people with unparalleled powers. Then they would appear-the Emperor and the Empress, the Devil and the Magician. They circled the crumbling tower as they waited for the world to forget them. But Rose feared that would never happen. She dealt the next card, placing it beside the Emperor. The Fool fell beside him, and she hesitated before drawing the next card. This was new, and it startled her. The spread indicated Ryu would begin something, some occurrence surrounding him would set in motion a new event. She quickly dealt the next card, eager to see what else had finally changed.

The Chariot was placed beside the Empress. A struggle. Something would soon devastate Chun-Li, an emotional battle. Only time would tell if she would win it. The third card was Justice place beneath the Devil, and she closed her eyes. It was too early to be certain that this was a relief, or a horror, and she prayed for the former. Vega's time was running out, for better or for worse. Finally, she dealt the card to be paired with the Magician, and revealed Strength. Charlie would become the guiding force and the backbone for these others to rely on. But why? Through what trials?

She placed another card, the World. The last of the major Arcana, it generally symbolised a rise to some new level of knowledge or strength. Something otherworldly revealed. She lay down the final card, and placed her palms on the table. Death. Something new and never before seen would bring death.


	3. A Gift That Imprisons

Chun-Li tried not to let this slow her down. But it was hard. There was no one to turn to. Gen's passing was the ending of everyone she'd ever looked up to in her life. Her mother she'd too briefly known. Her father. Now Gen. She'd refused to leave his side, hiding out whenever nurses came by to check on him. She hated that she had to hide, but she refused to be taken, not when he was so close to death.

It'd happened without warning, and she couldn't decide if that was worse than knowing the exact moment. One moment, he was there, breathing peacefully, and suddenly, he was gone. The noise of the flatlining heart monitor had been like some annoying fly in the background. All she could hear was the otherwise silent room that had before been filled by his steady breathing. She couldn't leave him, but the footsteps racing down the hall forced her to. It wasn't until she was outside the hospital when the tears finally began to flow. She was walking, as if casually, and it just all came down on her at once with such force it nearly took her breath away. Gen was dead. She let loose a cry, not intentionally, but neither did she try to stop it.

And that was when she realised just how alone she was now. Here, in China. She couldn't go to anyone for comfort, and this made it all hurt that much more. She was tired of it. Tired of silence and secrecy and living on the outskirts of a society she'd given literally everything to save. To not even be able to mourn for her mentor. To not be able to turn to a friend without putting them in harms way in her time of need. She tangled her fingers into her hair and stopped trying to fight for composure. She didn't want this anymore, this 'gift', as Rose had dared to call it. Was it? What kind of gift kept her imprisoned in her own life? Forced her away from everything and everyone she loved? She wanted to scream, but couldn't even have that for fear of the attention it would draw.

She straightened herself up, quickly wiping at the tears left on her face. She focused on them in frustration, willing them to disperse into the air like a vapour. And they did, as if they'd been bubbles on her fingertips that had been popped. It only made her want to cry more. This hollow feeling was going to consume her, she knew, but for how long? She wanted to will it away, but it was impossible. She forced her self to settle down a bit. To let herself feel grief. Gen was dead, and she had to let herself learn to accept that, whatever it took. Whether through that awful, hollow feeling, or tears, or whatever else, she had to let herself feel it, or it would never pass.

So she breathed, slowly, deeply, evenly. She was allowed to feel pain. And she couldn't allow herself to grow bitter over her situation, else her life would never get better. She had been there until the very end for Gen, and it was the best she could do. She couldn't stop death, and couldn't expect that of herself.

The lights of the city street seemed less than inviting to her for now, and she couldn't bring herself to head down that road. There were three people in this world she could go to. Three people who, if she was seen with, it wouldn't matter. Who she didn't have to worry about turning her over to police or any other agency. One she chose not to go to, because she hated him, and she didn't have the energy to hate anyone now. The other was too elusive, and she could never hope to find him. Even with a distinct sense of his presence in her own mind, as she was present in all of theirs, she realised it would simply take too much time to get to him. So she settled on the third. Maybe there were friends she could no longer go to, but these three would always be around. She could control that, turn away from the idea of isolation and embrace what friendships she could have.

She turned away from the main roads of the city, and headed for the beach, tears steadily streaming from her eyes. She wondered to herself, if she were to dissolve into her aqueous form, to become like a living sculpture made of water, would the tears still flow, or dissolve back into her? She walked quicker, towards the shore. Two years ago, just about, she'd found Ryu and Sakura on this beach with what she now knew was called a dragon, an entity that had helped create the world. She'd met another dragon there, too. The one which she'd offered her life to, in another time.

She stepped onto the beach, looking down at her feet as she slipped off her shoes. She scanned the shoreline. It wasn't completely empty, but it was dark, and the nearest person was still far off. She headed for the waves, and dove in, mingling with the sea.

* * *

He was deep in the wilderness of Cambodia when he felt it. One of them was distressed. There was an awful pain in his head, and it had persisted for days. Over time it had become more dull, and he was able to ignore it now. But it was a troubling sign. It was nothing to do with his own body, but something else altogether.

Ryu was connected to these people now, whether he wanted to be or not, in a very deep manner. It was a connection that grew with time, in spite of their distance. Whatever deep, intense emotions they felt, they all felt, albeit the rest to a lesser extent. Chun-Li's sorrow had reached him, a dull throb in his heart that made him miss his home. He wasn't sure what had happened, but knew that it had to do with her. He couldn't put it into words how he knew which feelings belonged to which of the others. She was certainly in some sort of emotional pain, and it made him worried for her.

So he'd searched for a city big enough to have an internet cafe. It took him several days but he found it. He was lucky in that, unlike the others, he was not nearly as recognisable. No one knew his face quite as well. Few pictures of him existed. So it gave him a little more freedom. He still preferred to remain cautious, and generally avoided crowded areas as a rule.

He sat in front of the computer, sighing quietly to himself in frustration. How did one do this again? It'd been so long since he'd used a computer. Ken made some mailing account for him once, and it was always full of messages from people. It would force him to spend so much time reading each of them and responding to all of them. He was not a very fast typist. He'd seen Sakura write on a computer before and he was astounded at how fast she could make her fingers move, and without even having to look at the keys, either. When he finally figured out how to get to the internet, he stared for a minute. What was he supposed to type to get it again? The word 'mail' resulted in postal related services in the area. Then he remembered it was called 'e-mail' and that changed the results. He found the website that looked most familiar, and it took him two tries before he remembered his own name and password.

He clicked the first one. Sakura was asking him to come back home to visit. He pondered this for a moment, and decided maybe it would be a good idea. He wanted to get into contact with Chun-Li and find out what had happened to upset her enough that he could feel it. Sakura could probably get them in contact with each other, as Ryu did not have her e-mail address, and he had no idea how he should go about finding it. He took a minute to write her a message, promising her he'd come to see her. That couldn't hurt, either. He missed his friends. It was one thing to get to mail them every few weeks. But another thing entirely to see them in person and hear their voices. He added to the message for Sakura that he would see if Ken would meet them as well. There was someone he hadn't seen in too long. And after spending so much time together, that had been difficult.

Ryu sent the message, and moved onto the next one. From Ken. "WHY DO YOU NEVER CHECK THIS" was all it said. Ken, Ryu supposed, wrote his e-mails in a certain style that generally entailed a dozen messages. The first eleven would be one sentence, repeatedly asking Ryu to answer. The last would be the main message. Ryu used to answer every single one of them, but Ken told him to stop it, and just send one e-mail. He couldn't figure out how that was anything different from what Ken was doing, but decided it wasn't worth wondering about for too long. Ryu clicked through until he finally reached Ken's initial message.

"Dude, you should be aware, someone is asking about you. Someone weird. I mean, I don't want to say 'Shadaloo', but if I had to guess, well, let's be honest with ourselves here. definitely Shadaloo. Stay safe out there and write me back so I know you got this."

Ryu responded to him, letting him know he got the message, but also adding a request of his own. "Can you be in Japan in about a week? I'll be there to visit Sakura." He sent it off. There was another message, this one from Guile. He generally only asked how everything was, a sort of polite interest. Ryu and he rarely talked in any greater way than that. So he responded to the message quickly enough. At the last minute, he remembered he'd be trying to get into touch with Chun-Li, and decided to ask Guile if he could help. Guile and Chun-Li were pretty close, what with her father having known the man through his work. By the time he had finished, Sakura had already responded.

"Cool! Can't wait! Yaaa!" Ryu smiled. Even in letters, she made her enthusiasm inescapable. He closed and signed out of everything as he'd been taught by Ken. Pulling his bag onto his shoulder, he double-checked the computer to make sure he'd turned everything off, and headed for the ports. One of the boats would be shipping off to Japan, and he'd make sure to be on the next one.

* * *

She looked down at the monitor, as if to remind herself that this had really happened. She, of all people in the world, had been one of five assigned to bringing him down. Herself, another Brit, two Americans, and a French man had been given orders to take him alive and as unharmed as possible. The American military had tracked him from the site of a helicopter which he had been recorded as destroying, into a neighboring village. She supposed she should have been happy they hadn't simply turned the entire area into a wasteland to be rid of him.

No, instead, she had been given a rifle and several darts, and told she was attempt number three. The five of them had been ordered to fire at him in a particular sequence so as to avoid killing him with an overdose. One dart, she had been told, was a bit like getting laughing gas. It wasn't enough to put him under, but it would slow him down and leave him confused. Another dose, and he'd be unconscious within minutes. A third, he'd be comatose. And a fourth meant death. The doses had been measured out based on his weight, but even that was inexact-they couldn't know how much he weighed now, going off of records from nearly two years ago. They were told to use their best judgement, which made her feel sick. They weren't doctors. How were they to know if one dart was not enough, or entirely too much? But she did as she was told. And it had gone as planned. The first soldier had missed, drawing Vega's attention immediately. The second didn't hesitate, and her heart had raced knowing that meant she couldn't either. When she squeezed the trigger he was just attempting to run. He made it a few feet before swaying, and another three steps before slumping against a wall. She remembered how he laughed when he finally fell. Ironic and resigned.

They hadn't wasted any time rushing him back to the helicopter that had delivered them here. On board were a few medical personnel, ignoring the rest of them and focusing on their job of monitoring his vitals. That had been nearly three weeks ago. The media hadn't yet been alerted. She supposed this was in order to keep the other three from knowing Vega had been caught, so they wouldn't become more cautious. She wondered what chance she had of hearing of any such plans for the capture of the rest. She and Delta Red were not kept entirely out of the loop on these matters, as evidenced by the fact that she had been requested to assist in the capture of Vega. But nor were they as well informed as other government agencies. She kept her ears open, all the same.

Movement on the monitor caught her eye. He'd rolled from one side of the bed, to the other, clutching his head. She frowned at the image. Vega was in a 'secure facility', though she'd never been informed where, exactly. She didn't need to know, according to the US government, who had taken charge in this situation. He was officially considered their prisoner, and she pressed her lips together at the thought. Criminal, terrorist, murderer-all these words applied to him, but in her mind, the most important one to consider was 'human'. And she doubted their ability to remember that, as evidenced by the order for complete solitary confinement. His home now was a windowless little hovel. All that accompanied him were a bed and its sheets, a pillow, and the orange jumpsuit he wore. He'd go mad like that, if he hadn't already. More than he already was.

The security footage wasn't publicly available, of course, but she'd pestered her superiors enough about it for them to finally give her permission to access it. It was sensitive information, but so were the details of the mission they'd selected her for, and she'd been trusted with that. She wondered if Vega knew she was the one to put him under, and if he did, how he would react.

Her phone rang, and she glanced away from one screen to the other to see who it was. Guile. They'd been in contact more often since Vega had been caught. He gave her what information he could about the other three and any plans that might be cooking to catch them. Most were just rumours fueled by the media. Nothing concrete. No one knew where they were yet, so they were safe, for now. "Hello," she answered. He responded in kind.

"Just checking in. How is everything on your end?" he asked.

"Fine. I've gotten clearance to monitor Vega's security feed."

She caught the sigh he'd tried to suppress. "Cammy, why are you doing that to yourself?" Guile couldn't fathom the weird back-and-forth between a nice girl like Cammy and a guy like Vega.

"Doing what? I helped put him in here, I should know what's happening to him."

"He isn't your concern anymore. He's where he needs to be, for everyone's safety," Guile responded.

"I must respectfully disagree with you. His living conditions are inhumane. Are you aware of the effect that solitary confinement can have on a person's mental state?"

She didn't have to be able to see Guile to know his hand was being held to his head just about now. "We can't exactly put him in a regular prison with other people. You know that."

"So you bring the other people to him. Or person, if you'd like."

"It'd be suicide for anyone to go in there to talk to him. He'd burn them alive just to spite us, regardless of who they were."

"I don't think that's entirely accurate."

Guile was quiet for a moment as he processed the meaning of her words. "No," he stated firmly as if dealing with his own daughter.

"Yes," she answered back just a sternly. "It is a simple fact that depriving a person of all human contact will harm them significantly. You and I both know that mental unwellness is an area in which he has a head start on the rest of us. Do we really want to make this worse? He's been given opportunity after opportunity to kill me. God, he's been _ordered _to do so and refused in spite of the immense risk! Do you really think it is so unreasonable to assume that I could speak to him without coming to harm?"

"First, you've said it yourself-the isolation will change a person. What if three weeks was enough to change this one assumption you're betting on? What if he knows you're one of the people who put him there? You could be killed. That, in my mind, is not worth it! There's no reason for you to put yourself in harm's way over this guy! You don't owe him anything!"

"I owe him _everything!" _she shouted. She ground her teeth at her outburst. Guile waited patiently to hear what she had to say to rationalize such a statement. "I-I know it sounds absurd. But he's the reason I'm alive, and free. How do you pay back a debt that size? No, I don't intend to forgive him every wrong thing he's ever done. But to treat him like a human being-is that such a terrible idea?"

Guile couldn't see it her way. Even if she thought Vega saved her-which he figured must have been some kind of accident, because he couldn't imagine Vega risking himself for anyone else-that didn't mean she was supposed to endanger herself for him. "Cammy, look, I can't stop you from pursuing this. I'm not going to help you, because I don't want to see you get hurt. I don't care how confident you are that he won't kill you, he is an unpredictable and dangerous person. I don't want to be the one responsible for your death. So, that's all. I'm not going to get in your way, but I'm not going to help you with this."

She smiled, though she knew he couldn't see it. "I wouldn't ask you to." She glanced back down at the monitor, and Vega was looking back.

* * *

"Query: Unknown slash alias General Bison. Follow response: Query: Andres Quesada Navarro. Follow query one: Location. Follow query two: mutual benefits of capture. Response to negation: Insistence. Response to-"

Bison pressed his lips together at the string of words pouring from the lips of the fairly convincing machine. Whoever had found him was skilled, he'd give them that. And their craftwork was decent. The machine felt like real flesh-it was even slightly warm, something he hadn't been able to achieve with the androids he had built himself. But the eyes were a giveaway. Something that couldn't be made to look human. That had been his initial tip off. The second had been the strange, halting manner of speech.

He had realised upon first interacting with the machine some weeks ago that it was not human. He'd spent time trying to research who'd be capable of creating such a life-like replica with such responsive AI. It'd been fruitless, so he'd resolved to take it apart himself to better understand it. And sure enough, it had returned, asking him for the whereabouts of his former employee. He wouldn't deny that he was also interested in learning how whoever sent the machine knew where to find him.

He peeled back the flesh where he'd made the incision. The machine didn't resist, didn't feign some kind pain. There was no blood to speak of. How had this been achieved? The metal beneath was smooth and perfect. This machine was well taken care of, or new, or both. "Will you receive a command?" he questioned.

"You are not an authorised party," the machine responded.

"Who would be an authorised party?"

"Voice recognition failed." Then, the machine was quiet, and its eyes stared at the ceiling. He assumed it had powered down, which didn't bother him any. If it wouldn't speak, then he'd extract information directly from its memory.

Bison continued to peel away random sections of flesh from the living doll. Somewhere, there had to be panels to access the insides of this thing. He would have placed the most important parts in the chest cavity. It was generally the only part that could house the amount of electronics required to power a machine of this size and complexity. But there was nothing there. He could see the seams running down the machine's sides where it had presumably been welded together.

He changed tactics, now peeling the skin from the head. Here, there was no more metal, but something like plexiglass. It was hard, clear, but durable. The eyes had no depth to them, he saw now as the skin was gone. They were planted into the plastic skull, just hemispheres of gel. He squinted at the circuitry inside of the head. There was remarkably little, and he'd never seen anything like it before. He touched the hard plastic, searching for access to the electronics inside, when suddenly, the entire machine was gone. It'd disappeared without warning, and he turned slowly in the room to reassure himself it wasn't still there. The synthetic skin was the only indication that this machine had ever existed. Whatever it was, it was advanced, much more so than he believed anyone on the planet to be. Even, he admitted, himself.

Pulling his phone from his pocket, he composed a message. "I am still operating under the assumption that you are ignoring my messages. Rather that than your being compromised. You are still being pursued. Some advanced machinery. I can't speak to its reasoning, but I don't take it to be property of any government or military. Use caution." Bison couldn't know the intended recipient, Vega, would never get the message. But it would prove to be helpful nonetheless.


End file.
